


People Expect Big Things From a Man With a Jetpack

by cosmicocean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Yoda Acquisition, Angst, Angst and Humor, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, being a single dad is hard but he's trying, but he loves his kid and he's doing his best, din tries to be good at jetpacking and a good dad, i use the word weary in this like fifty times and it's because din djarin is having a hard time, it's not a mandalorian story without him getting his ass kicked at least once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: “It’s like watching a baby bird try and take off for the first time,” Cara says. She holds out a corn popper to the Child, who pauses in his singleminded quest to try and devour the pendant to eye it thoughtfully.“I could kill you any which way right now,” Din says.Cara chews, slowly and deliberately. “You could definitely try.” The Child takes the corn popper and stares at it. “Relax, part of practicing something new is getting your ass handed to you every now and again. It’s just my right as a person to laugh at you for it.”Din Djarin, learning how to use a jetpack one step at a time.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 340
Collections: Fics_to_make_me_smile





	People Expect Big Things From a Man With a Jetpack

The sky on Etschwis is a pleasant blue. It’s one of the things Etschwis is known for, apparently. Din had never heard of it before it came up on the charts he was surveying. It’s a mostly peaceful planet that occasionally has a little trouble with marauders. Cara and Din had teamed up to take them down, which had provided less in the way of opportunity to observe how beautifully blue the sky is, only dotted with clouds, a rich color that one could fall into.

Technically, he has more opportunity now, but it keeps sort of darting around in front of him and it makes it hard to appreciate until abruptly, the blue makes way for tall grass and mud.

“Ohh,” he hears Cara say. “ _Nicely_ done. _Right_ in the dirt there.”

Din pushes himself up and tries to make clear the force of his glare through his helmet, well aware that there’s mud dripping off it. Cara is sitting in the grass in the wide open field, leaning back, legs sprawled, a small bag of Cretidian corn poppers in her hand. She languidly chews as the Child gnaws on the pendant Din gave him, which is maybe not ideal, but better than him doing his level best to swallow that little metal ball and give Din a full heart attack that he’s going to need to give him the Heimlich. He’s not sure why he let her watch him attempt to master the jetpack in the first place.

“It’s like watching a baby bird try and take off for the first time,” Cara says. She holds out a corn popper to the Child, who pauses in his singleminded quest to try and devour the pendant to eye it thoughtfully.

“I could kill you any which way right now,” Din says.

Cara chews, slowly and deliberately. “You could definitely try.” The Child takes the corn popper and stares at it. “Relax, part of practicing something new is getting your ass handed to you every now and again. It’s just my right as a person to laugh at you for it.” The Child sticks the corn popper in his mouth, and just as promptly spits it back out. “Not a fan of corn poppers, huh?”

“I’m trying to get him to stop eating frogs,” Din says, and takes off again. He’s back in the mud about half a minute later.

The Child giggles. Din feels betrayed.

“ _No,_ ” Din says quickly as the Child starts poking at the jetpack in the _Razor Crest._ “No, no, kid, not a toy, _not a toy_ , look, I have that little metal ball, come here, look, shiny-“

It’s become a lot harder to negotiate while he has the kid.

Din wouldn’t give up the kid, not for anything in the world, which has been established, he supposes, by the lucrative bounties and personal safety he’s turned down up to this point. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s harder while he’s at bars trying to laser stare someone down in stony silence when he has an adorable green child in a sling across his chest.

The Chagrian is gazing warily at the kid. “Is he… chewing on a pair of handcuffs?”

“Yes,” Din says tersely. “I believe he’s teething.” He hasn’t been anywhere where they might have a teething ring, and the kid found the handcuffs and wouldn’t be parted from them, and it was easier to deal with him holding onto those than crying and throwing a tantrum, which is a whole other thing when the kid can move stuff with his mind. Din’s doing his best, which he’s not sure is good enough, but it is what it is. “Do you want me to do the job or don’t you?”

The Chagrian thinks it over. “Actually,” he says, reaching his hand under the table. “I think I’d rather just take in the bounty on you.”

There’s a whole lot of fighting very quickly that devolves into absolute chaos in the bar. That’s something else that having the kid makes more difficult. Din used to be able to be ran into during a bar fight, bowled over. Now there’s a lot more strategic ducking, even though the kid seems totally unconcerned and absolutely preoccupied with his handcuffs.

In the end, Din is backed against the window, and is out of ideas, and ends up hitting the button on his jetpack, almost entirely sure he can manage to handle this.

He spins around in the air a few times like a corkscrew, the only thing he’s able to hear over the whistling of the wind the giggling of the Child, his arm pressed tightly agains the sling to prevent the kid falling out and plants himself firmly in the desert outside town.

The Child pounds his breastplate excitedly, looking at him expectantly, dropping the handcuffs.

“No,” Din says wearily, just lying in the sand for a moment, even knowing how much work it’s gonna be to clean the sand out of the cracks in the beskar. “We’re not doing that again.”

“It’s gotta be just like riding a bike,” Cara says on Cervol as they wander through a midsummer festival. The Child is riding on Din’s shoulders, arm wrapped tightly around his helmet. His hands are sticky because Din let him have a very small amount of cotton candy, which appears to help him adhere to the helmet. He’s gonna have to polish it so much later. “Do you know how to ride a bike? I have a hard time picturing you with the, y’know-” She mimes being on a bike. “Pedals.”

“I know how to ride a bike,” he says stonily.

“Maybe we could go on the Ferris wheel and you could launch yourself off it. See how it takes. Maybe you’ll go splat on the pavement, maybe you won’t.”

“You just want to watch me go splat on the pavement.”

“Yeah.” Cara offers the kid a mini corn dog. She may not really do the baby thing in earnest, but she seems to be tentatively circling the Fun Buff Aunt position, which can only spell death and destruction for Din. “I do.”

They’re in an ice rink. Din has been studying some parenting holos, and apparently he should be trying to foster positive athletic experiences for the Child. He’s not sure what running from bars and shooting at former Imperials count as, but the kid seems to hate water more than anything, so swimming’s out and as far as he can tell, ice is in.

The Child is standing on the edge of the rink, staring out at it with some confusion. It had been tricky finding skates that would fit him, but they’ve managed. The person at the rink shop had even managed to find a little hat for the kid with the ears cut out so he could stick them through him. Din’s gotta try and find him a hat with ear coverings. He’s got big ears, they’ll get cold, right? 

The Child makes a forlorn sound at Din.

“Come on, kid, you can do it.”

The Child looks up at him and makes that forlorn sound again.

“Look, it’s easy.” Din steps onto the ice and activates the blades in his shoes. He’s very confident that the blades were not intended for this specific purpose, but they’ll do in a pinch. “Just, uh. Little steps.”

The Child regards him suspiciously, like Din is somehow trying to pull a fast one, then tentatively steps onto the ice. He almost falls over and Din immediately drops to his knees, catching him. The Child frowns, looking ready to turn right around and put this all behind him.

“Everyone falls down at first. Just push a little further.” He takes another hesitant step. “Good.” He takes another step. “Yeah, you’re getting it.” Din goes to let go of the Child but he lets out a sudden, panicked whine. “I can’t just shuffle along on my knees the whole time next to you, kid.”

Din shuffles along on his knees next to him the whole time. He sees a lot of parents shooting him pitying looks. He does his best to manfully ignore them. The Child coos, apparently getting used to the ice.

“Yeah? You’ll like snow, probably.” Din makes a mental note that he should probably introduce the kid to snow. Kids like snow, right? Din never did, but other kids probably do. They make… snowmen, or something.

The Child does his best to push off on his own. He skids a fair amount for someone of his size.

“Yeah, there you go!” Din can’t deny the slight surge of pride. The Child chirps back, arms waving a little. 

He stands, slips, lands on his ass, and manages to fall in the perfect way to activate the jetpack. He goes straight in the air, hits the ice, and skids right along the rink to hit the edge of the barriers between the rink and the ground, where he abruptly stops. He just lays there for a moment, well aware the pitying looks have no doubt increased.

He hears that coo again and he looks to see the Child, bent over him.

“Hey, you made it across the rink.” Din closes his eyes. “Good job.”

Din’s been angry a lot in his life.

(Actually, his life is mostly being angry)

But the anger that he finds when someone kidnaps the Child when they’re on a planet that’s mostly scrub bushes, plains, and hills is all new levels.

He tracks them to an encampment outside of a town. There’s only about fifteen of them there, all crowded around a fire. They’ve got the kid in a bag sitting on one of the crates they’re using presumably to store weapons. Din squints at the kid through his binoculars. He appears to be relatively unharmed, but sniffling a little, clearly miserable.

All Din’s careful planning, no matter how ridden with panic it was, goes out the window at the sight of the kid rubbing at his eyes, and all he sees is red.

He flips on the jetpack, races forwards, flies straight through the encampment, grabs the kid by the back of the robe, and skids to a landing just outside of the little encampment they’ve made. Everyone stares at him in shock, which gives him a good opportunity to promptly shoot everyone. There’s also some grenades involved.

Din flies straight back to the _Razor Crest_ , clutching the Child to his chest the whole way. He can feel the kid’s little hands clinging tightly to the edge of his armor around his neck, and it’s lodging the panic more firmly in his throat. He should have killed them twice. Maybe three times. And once more for good measure.

He doesn’t stop moving until the _Razor Crest_ is in the air and on auto-pilot. He tugs off his helmet and kneels in front of the Child, who is still sniffling on the floor.

“Hey,” he says, tugging off his gloves. “Are you hurt?”

He looks up at him with wide eyes, lip trembling.

“I’m gonna look you over, okay? Try not to… react instinctively and shove me into space.”

As far as Din can tell, the kid is physically fine, just shaken. He keeps giving Din that droopy eared look. Din sits heavily on the ground, and the Child immediately clambers into his lap.

“I know, kid,” he says wearily. “I’m sorry. I should have been faster. I’ll be better.”

The Child reaches out and delicately rests one of his little claws on his chin, seemingly endlessly fascinated by the little divot there. Din gently presses his forehead against his, and the Child seems to slowly calm.

The Child pulls back eventually, and Din lets him, opening his eyes. The Child holds his arms out and slowly weaves back and forth, staring at Din. He lets out a little whirring noise, and Din realizes he’s emulating the jetpack.

Din smiles faintly. “Yeah,” he says. “Could’ve gone really poorly. Should’ve thought that through.”

The kid’s ears perk up and he starts whirring louder.

“No. I’m not teaching you how to use that thing til you’re fifty.” Shit, the kid _is_ fifty. “One hundred and fifty.”

“How’d the latest jetpack test go?” Cara asks. They’re in a restaurant in a small city on Feriden, having successfully booted a would-be mafia boss from one of the boroughs. The Child is tentatively poking at pieces of a chopped up nerf steak, sniffing it curiously.

“I figured it out,” Din says.

Cara takes a swig of her beer. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Din ignores that. “Kid and I are going to Trevisen next. Supposed to have some good winters. Just gotta figure out how to bundle up the kid. Find him a… sweater or something. You wanna come?”

“I don’t do snow.” Cara sets her beer down and watches the Child slowly take a nibble off the piece of the nerf steak. He doesn’t immediately spit it out, which Din thinks has got to be progress. He might get him away from frogs yet. Maybe he should try fish next. “Or sweaters.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Armorer told Din it wouldn't obey his command or whatever until he practiced with it and then ten minutes later he used it to successfully bring down a TIE Fighter and all I'm saying is that he got lucky that one time and was gonna need to have some trial and error afterwards. Anyway, I found "Din learning to use jet pack" in my notes from a late night fic idea and knew it had to happen.
> 
> -the title is a reference to the Adventure Zone: I can't remember if Justin McElroy as Duck Newton or Justin McElroy as Justin McElroy says this, but I started the fic and knew it couldn't be anything else
> 
> -the midsummer festival is kind of like a county fair
> 
> -Heimlich and ferris wheel are both named after Earth people but I don't know how to reference them without calling them that so surprise! in this universe they're named after Star Wars people
> 
> -the blades in Din's shoes were DEFINITELY designed for some stabbing if the need arose
> 
> -the bit about the snow came about naturally but I was really excited that it did because as soon as I started the fic I was dying to get in a line from Cara that "I don't do sweaters" and I don't know why
> 
> [Many thanks to Klaudia for listening to my ramble about this fic! She does some lovely Mandalorian art! Go and check her stuff out!](https://klaudiart.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Every once in a while one of my fics gets a bunch of comments in a cluster from different users, and I’m pretty sure at this point it’s because it’s been recced. Which is exciting! But I’d love to see it when it happens, so here’s a link to my tumblr! Feel free to tag me!](https://cosmicoceanfic.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [People Expect Big Things From a Man With a Jetpack [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884274) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins), [wingedwords (gunpowderandlove)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowderandlove/pseuds/wingedwords)




End file.
